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Written Question
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
Thursday 29th February 2024

Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions a decision made by his Department on a person's eligibility for industrial injuries disablement benefits has been found to be incorrect or unsuitable in the last 12 months.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have determined this query as relating to Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits (IIDB) disputes, i.e. Mandatory Reconsiderations and Appeals.

Decisions can be overturned at a later stage in the claim journey for a number of reasons - it does not necessarily mean that the original decision was incorrect. The main reasons that decisions are overturned on appeal are: tribunals drawing a different conclusion based on the same evidence, cogent oral evidence given by the individual, or new written evidence provided at the hearing.

From October 2022 to September 2023 inclusive, 1,100 IIDB Mandatory Reconsiderations were completed. In 100 of these the decision was changed.

  • This data is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution.
  • Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.
  • Figures include Industrial Injuries Disablement Allowance and Reduced Earnings Allowance.
  • Definition of Mandatory Reconsideration: Claimants who wish to dispute a decision made on their claim are required to ask the department to reconsider the decision before they can lodge an appeal with His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service. MRs can arise for various reasons, such as omitting to tell the DWP about relevant evidence during the initial decision-making process; this could include not returning forms required as part of the claim.
  • Figures are for Great Britain only.

Information on First-tier Tribunal appeals is published at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics .

Specifically, information on the number of appeal receipts, disposals and outcomes of IIDB appeals, can be found in the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) tables: SSCS_1, SSCS_2 and SSCS_3 of the Main Tables.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Monday 8th January 2024

Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of appeals to the Tribunals Service for (a) personal independence payment, (b) employment and support allowance, (c) income support, (d) jobseekers allowance and (e) tax credits were successful in (i) Glasgow South West constituency, (ii) Glasgow, (iii) Scotland and (iv) Great Britain in (A) 2021-22 and (B) 2022-23.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

Information about appeals to the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) is published at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.

SSCS appeals are listed into the hearing venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. Glasgow Tribunal Centre is the only SSCS venue serving the Glasgow South West constituency. The published data (which can be viewed at the link above) provide information about the outcomes of (a) Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and (b) Employment Support Allowance (ESA), for (i) Glasgow South West constituency (this is covered by the Glasgow data), (ii) Glasgow, (iii) Scotland and (iv) Great Britain in (A) 2021-22 and (B) 2022-23.

The tables below contain the requested information for Glasgow and Scotland for (c) Income Support, (d) Job Seekers Allowance and (e) Tax Credits for 2021 – 22; and 2022-23:

INCOME SUPPORT

Glasgow Venue1

Scotland HMCTS Region1

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour2

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour

2021_20223

15

5

53%

30

14

47%

2022_20233

4

~

~

8

~

~

JOB SEEKER’S ALLOWANCE

Glasgow Venue

Scotland HMCTS Region

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour

2021_2022

9

~

~

26

9

35%

2022_2023

9

~

~

25

5

20%

TAX CREDITS

Glasgow Venue

Scotland HMCTS Region

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour

No. Cleared at Hearing

No. Decision in Favour

% Decision in Favour

2021_2022

9

~

~

21

13

62%

2022_2023

3

~

~

11

5

45%

Notes:

1. SSCS data is normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address but can produce reports detailing the numbers of cases that were dealt with at one of our Regional centres or heard at a specific venue. 2. Proportion based on the number of cases found in favour of the appellant at a tribunal hearing as a percentage of the cases heard at a tribunal hearing. 3. 1st April – 31st March

~ Suppressed in line with official published stats. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available. These data may differ slightly to that of the published statistics as these data were run on a different date.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Tuesday 12th December 2023

Asked by: Simon Lightwood (Labour (Co-op) - Wakefield)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants who were given a negative decision following the suspension of their claim by the Risk Review Team or Enhanced Review Team (a) appealed that decision and (b) had a tribunal allow their appeal in each of the last five years.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Risk Review Team (RRT) has now been incorporated in to a broader and wide-ranging Enhanced Review Team (ERT), aimed at identifying and stopping fraud early.

As the NAO have reported in the Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23. ‘The majority of 2022-23 savings (£650 million) came from the Enhanced Review Team (ERT), which provides a rapid response service for detailed checking of high-risk Universal Credit claims before they go into payment. These estimates also suggest that preventative actions have a much higher level of return than investigating fraud and error after it has occurred.’

Data on how many and what proportion of cases handled by ERT have resulted in suspension is not available to this level for ERT and to produce it would incur disproportionate costs. This is due to large volumes of data being held across different clerical platforms, which would need to be forensically examined.

Likewise, data on cases closed, reinstated, or remaining suspended, cannot be provided within reasonable costs.

We are unable to provide the number of claimants who have appealed decisions on cases closed following RRT/ERT action and the number who have been successful in their appeals over the last five years because ERT only started completing reviews in April 2020.

We are unable to give per year figures since the formation of ERT due to the lengthy dispute process and are also unable to identify which appeals would have previously been suspended, due to this data not being held. However, the cumulative total of cases for RRT and ERT that have been through the dispute process are:

  • Appealed to date - 1118
  • Outcome in claimant’s favour – 228

Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Monday 16th October 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the average waiting time for mandatory reconsideration of benefit decisions in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that mandatory reconsiderations are conducted (i) quickly and (ii) effectively.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The median mandatory reconsideration (MR) clearance times have been provided for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Universal Credit (UC) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) benefit decisions. To provide information across all other DWP administered benefits would incur disproportionate cost.

Median clearance times have been provided as the mean can be unduly affected by outlying cases.

Personal Independence Payment

The median clearance times for PIP Mandatory Reconsiderations, normal rules between August 2022 and July 2023, were:

a) 28 calendar days for Coventry

b) 28 calendar days for West Midlands

c) 28 calendar days for England

Notes:

  1. Each PIP claim can have more than one reconsideration registered against it. The above includes all MR decisions (excluding withdrawn and cancelled).
  2. The PIP MR clearance times are based on the clearance times from the date the MR was registered to the date the MR was cleared.
  3. DWP offers particular support for those coming to the end of their life, known as the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL). This was formerly called Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI). Cases which are not processed under SREL are referred to as ‘normal rules’ claims. The status of claims as 'normal rules' or 'SREL' is shown as at the point of registration.
  4. Definition of median: The median time is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value.

Universal Credit

The median clearance times for UC Mandatory Reconsiderations between August 2022 and July 2023 were:

a) 37 calendar days for Coventry

b) 35 calendar days for West Midlands

c) 36 calendar days for England

Notes:

  1. Each UC claim can have more than one reconsideration registered against it. The above includes all MR decisions (excluding withdrawn and cancelled).
  2. The UC MR clearance times are based on the clearance times from the date the MR was registered to the date the MR was cleared.
  3. This data on UC MR clearance times is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.
  4. For a small number of UC claims with an MR (1%) it was not possible to determine the geography information, so these have not been included in the figures.
  1. Definition of median: The median time is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value.

Employment and Support Allowance

ESA Work Capability Assessment MR clearance times are available on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. It can be found by going through “ESA Work Capability Assessments”, “Mandatory Reconsideration – Clearances” “Table 4 – Median Clearance Times by Date of Decision”. It is then possible to restrict to Coventry, West Midlands and England.

In law there is no time limit within which a Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) decision must be made. This reflects the overarching policy that the focus should be on making the right decision and not the speed of clearance. Of course, decisions will be made without delay but if the decision maker considers that more time is needed to gather or consider evidence, then they will give themselves that time to ensure they are confident that the decision ultimately made is correct.

We constantly review our processes to ensure we are providing the best possible customer service to customers requesting a mandatory reconsideration, both in terms of speed of dealing with the request and quality of decision making. For example, we have improved the system functionality in UC to allow some customers to directly upload evidence to inform a decision to improve the customer experience. We have also recruited circa 400 additional colleagues into the Dispute Resolution Service over the summer to increase capacity and reduce waiting times.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Tuesday 2nd May 2023

Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in his Department are trained to provide evidence at First-tier Tribunal appeals.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The number of staff trained to provide evidence at first-tier tribunal appeals is 150 full time equivalents (FTE).

Please note that the data supplied is from the departmental activity based models. This data is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution. The departmental activity based staffing models are a snapshot (March 2023) of how many people were identified as undertaking specified activities as assigned by line managers.

Child Maintenance Service figures exclude Enforcement Court Presenting Officers.


Written Question
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit: Appeals
Thursday 20th April 2023

Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of claims for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits which are refused following medical assessment but are subsequently overturned at Tribunal are fully backdated and paid out in full to the claimant.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

All Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) claims overturned at Tribunal will be paid full arrears for the appropriate period in line with the Tribunal’s decision, unless the Tribunal’s decision is overturned in any subsequent appeal to the Upper Tribunal or a Higher Court.

Information on appeals in the First-tier Tribunal, including IIDB appeals, is published at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.

Specifically, information on the number of appeal receipts, disposals and outcomes of IIDB appeals, can be found in the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) tables: SSCS_1, SSCS_2 and SSCS_3 of the Main Tables.

The information requested on the proportion of IIDB claims which are refused following medical assessment, but are subsequently overturned at Tribunal that are fully backdated and paid out in full to the claimant, is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Wednesday 29th March 2023

Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) Personal Independence Payment and (b) Universal Credit decisions were overturned at tribunal when the initial assessment was conducted (i) face-to-face, (ii) by telephone and (iii) by video call in the last 12 months.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The table below provides the requested information for Personal Independence Payment. Namely the volume and proportion of initial decisions overturned at appeal, for initial decisions between October 2021 and September 2022.

The Universal Credit breakdown is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Assessment Type

Number Overturned

Proportion Overturned

Face-to-face

570

1.4%

Telephone

8,500

1.7%

Video Call

250

1.0%

Please note:

  • Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 or 100 and percentages to 1 decimal place;
  • The DWP may also undertake paper-based reviews;
  • We have provided data for England and Wales (excluding Scotland) in line with the latest published figures on PIP;
  • Both normal and special rules for the terminally ill cases are included in these figures;
  • These figures include initial decisions following assessment for PIP (New Claims and Reassessments) between 1st October 2021 and 30th September 2022, the latest date for which published data is available; and
  • These figures include appeal outcomes up to 31st December 2022, the latest date for which published data is available. Note that more appeals could be made and completed after December 2022, so numbers may change as it can take some time for an appeal to be lodged and then cleared after the initial decision.

Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Monday 27th March 2023

Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2023 to Question 159021 on Social Security Benefits: Appeals, for what reason there is a target for implementing tribunal decisions on Personal Independent Payments but not on (a) Employment and Support Allowance and (b) Universal Credit.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Universal Credit (UC) tribunal decisions are processed in a different team to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) tribunal decisions. Although there is no target for implementing ESA and UC tribunal decisions, the department’s overarching objective is, and always has been, to do so without delay.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Monday 13th March 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of appeals to the tribunals service in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England relating to (i) personal independence payments, (ii) employment and support allowance, (iii) jobseeker's allowance and (iv) universal credit were successful in (A) the most recent period for which figures are available and (B) each of the last three years.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

Information about the outcomes of appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) is published at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.

SSCS appeals are listed into the hearing venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. The published data (which can be viewed at the link above) provide information about the outcomes of (i) Personal Independence Payment (PIP), (ii) Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and (iv) Universal Credit (UC) appeals for hearing venues covering (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England for the period requested.

The table below contains the requested information for (iii)Job Seekers Allowance (JSA):

Coventry

West Midlands1

England2

2019/20

~

27%

39%

2020/21

~

~

27%

2021/22

80%

42%

28%

Q1 2022/23P

~

26%

25%

Q2 2022/23p

0%

~

17%

Q3 2022/23p

~

~

23%

Notes:

SSCS data is normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address but can produce reports detailing the numbers of cases that were dealt with at one of our Regional centres or heard at a specific venue.

The proportion of successful appeals is based on the number of cases found in favour of the appellant at a tribunal hearing as a percentage of the cases heard at a tribunal hearing.

Data up to December 2022 in line with latest published statistics.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available.

These data may differ slightly to that of the published statistics as these data were run on a different date.

1. West Midlands includes the venues: Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Coventry, Nuneaton, Stoke, Telford and Worcester

2. Excludes SSCS Scotland Region and Wales Region.

~ Suppressed in line with official published stats

P Provisional, in line with published data.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Appeals
Monday 13th March 2023

Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants who were given a negative decision following the suspension of their claim by the risk review team (a) appealed that decision and (b) had a tribunal allow their appeal.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

212 out of 188,119 claimants who have had their cases suspended by the Risk Review Team have appealed the decision (0.11%) with 42 claimants having their appeal allowed, which is 0.02% of the total number of claims suspended.